Israeli Soldiers: We’d Be a ‘Sick Army’ If We Listened to Radicals

JERUSALEM, Israel — Former Israeli soldiers blasted a new report by a radical left-wing group called “Breaking the Silence” that alleges the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) maintained a policy of “indiscriminate fire” during last summer’s Gaza war.

Retired IDF General Yom-Tov Samia, who headed the Southern Command from 2001 to 2003, told attendees at the Shurat HaDin conference on the laws of war that if the IDF paid attention to Breaking the Silence, it would be a “sick army.”

The group has made similar claims in previous wars. Sometimes, its accusations are false or exaggerated. Often, the conditions about which it complains are neither illegal nor unusual, and are part of the drudgery or brutality of war.

The report, which was released Monday, is allegedly based on accounts by 60 IDF soldiers who participated in Operation Protective Edge. That conflict was initiated by Hamas and involved the new threat of tunnels targeting Israeli civilians.

Post-conflict assessments estimated that the ratio of Palestinian civilians to combatants killed was roughly 1-to-1–an extraordinarily low ratio, especially given that Palestinian combatants put Palestinian civilians deliberately in danger.

Former combat soldier and attorney Ran Bar-Yoshafat (above), who fought in the war as a reservist, told Breitbart News that few Israelis who fought take Breaking the Silence seriously, and that its primary audience is university students abroad.